Dear Evan Hansen

I recently went up to New York for the day with some friends to see Dear Evan Hansen. It was a show I wanted to see for a long time, but I didn’t jump on the band wagon soon enough and it was hard to get tickets. So we bought these almost 9 months ago, and the day finally came the weekend before last.

I loved the show, and it was as great as I had been hearing. The musical is beautiful and moving. I definitely cried multiple times during the show. At a time when everyone seems so divided the show’s message about human connection felt really poignant.

I often like to go into shows cold especially if I know I’m not going to be seeing the original Broadway cast because otherwise I wind up comparing the cast I’m seeing to what I hear in my head from the cast recording. Although there were still a few people left from the original cast most of them were new, so I did studiously avoid listening to the cast recording and only knew the bare minimum of the plot going in. In retrospect I wish I had known a little bit more going in because I spent three quarters of the show anxious about how Evan’s lie was going to blow up in his face. It actually turned out to be much less terrible than I was anticipating, but either way I kind of wish I had known what was coming so that I didn’t feel so much stress about it for most of the show. Stupid anxiety brain.

Speaking of anxiety brain that was my one complaint about the show. You can’t really think too hard about the mental illness piece of it otherwise you’ll hate it. I mean it’s not instantaneous, but there is a lot of subtle suggestion that getting popular and getting a girlfriend seemingly cured Evan of his debilitating anxiety, which is just not how that works. I loved the rest of the show, so I’m just going to set that aside and not worry about it too much.

It’s definitely a great show, and if you can get tickets I would recommend it to you if you’re looking for a Broadway show to see. That being said I think it’s a show that you can also wait and see as a touring production if you’re like me and weigh out which shows are best seen on Broadway versus those which will be fine as a touring production. There’s not really anything in this production that can’t be recreated well enough on a tour, and especially now that you’re not really going to see the original Broadway cast if that’s something you’re into there’s no reason that the touring actors aren’t just as good as who you would be seeing on Broadway.